Anthropogenic activity underpins the creation of urban ecosystems, often with introduced or invasive species playing a large role in structuring ecological communities. While the effects of urbanization on charismatic taxa such as birds, bees or butterflies have received much attention, the impacts on small and inconspicuous organisms remain poorly understood. #link# Here, we assess how the community structure of leaf litter-inhabiting microarthropods in city parks varies along an urbanization gradient in Toronto, Canada. At each park, we established paired forest understorey plots which were either dominated by native vegetation or dog-strangling vine Vincetoxicum rossicum, an invasive species that is spreading throughout northeastern North America and abundant in urban areas. We compared microarthropod richness, abundance and diversity in ecological traits between invaded and non-invaded plots as well as compositional dissimilarities among plots across the urbanization gradient. We recorded 123 genera and found (arban areas. Here, there is high richness and abundance but low ecological trait diversity, possibly because certain feeding traits are excluded and others overrepresented. Understanding of urban ecological systems must include knowledge of the microarthropods that interact widely across food webs, form distinct communities in highly urban areas and drive many of the important ecological functions upon which people in cities depend.High resolution three-dimensional (3D) magnetic resonance (MR) images are well suited for automated cartilage segmentation in the human knee joint. However, volumetric scans such as 3D Double-Echo Steady-State (DESS) images are not routinely acquired in clinical practice which limits opportunities for reliable cartilage segmentation using (fully) automated algorithms. In https://www.selleckchem.com/products/ap20187.html , a method for generating synthetic 3D MR (syn3D-DESS) images with better contrast and higher spatial resolution from routine, low resolution, two-dimensional (2D) Turbo-Spin Echo (TSE) clinical knee scans is proposed.
A UNet convolutional neural network is employed for synthesizing enhanced artificial MR images suitable for automated knee cartilage segmentation. Training of the model was performed on a large, publically available dataset from the OAI, consisting of 578 MR examinations of knee joints from 102 healthy individuals and patients with knee osteoarthritis.
The generated synthetic images have higher spatial resolution and better tissue contrast than the original 2D TSE, which allow high quality automated 3D segmentations of the cartilage. The proposed approach was evaluated on a separate set of MR images from 88 subjects with manual cartilage segmentations. It provided a significant improvement in automated segmentation of knee cartilages when using the syn3D-DESS images compared to the original 2D TSE images.
The proposed method can successfully synthesize 3D DESS images from 2D TSE images to provide images suitable for automated cartilage segmentation.
The proposed method can successfully synthesize 3D DESS images from 2D TSE images to provide images suitable for automated cartilage segmentation.Disease recurrence in surgically treated lung adenocarcinoma (AC) remains high. New approaches for risk stratification beyond tumor stage are needed. Gene expression-based AC subtypes such as the Cancer Genome Atlas Network (TCGA) terminal-respiratory unit (TRU), proximal-inflammatory (PI) and proximal-proliferative (PP) subtypes have been associated with prognosis, but show methodological limitations for robust clinical use. We aimed to derive a platform independent single sample predictor (SSP) for molecular subtype assignment and risk stratification that could function in a clinical setting. Two-class (TRU/nonTRU=SSP2) and three-class (TRU/PP/PI=SSP3) SSPs using the AIMS algorithm were trained in 1655 ACs (n = 9659 genes) from public repositories vs TCGA centroid subtypes. Validation and survival analysis were performed in 977 patients using overall survival (OS) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) as endpoints. In the validation cohort, SSP2 and SSP3 showed accuracies of 0.85 and 0.81, respectively. SSPs captured relevant biology previously associated with the TCGA subtypes and were associated with prognosis. In survival analysis, OS and DMFS for cases discordantly classified between TCGA and SSP2 favored the SSP2 classification. In resected Stage I patients, SSP2 identified TRU-cases with better OS (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.30; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.18-0.49) and DMFS (TRU HR = 0.52; 95% CI = 0.33-0.83) independent of age, Stage IA/IB and gender. SSP2 was transformed into a NanoString nCounter assay and tested in 44 Stage I patients using RNA from formalin-fixed tissue, providing prognostic stratification (relapse-free interval, HR = 3.2; 95% CI = 1.2-8.8). In conclusion, gene expression-based SSPs can provide molecular subtype and independent prognostic information in early-stage lung ACs. SSPs may overcome critical limitations in the applicability of gene signatures in lung cancer.In generalized mutualisms, species vary in the quality of services they provide to their partners directly via traits that affect partner fitness and indirectly via traits that influence interactions among mutualist species that play similar functional roles. Myrmecochory, or seed dispersal by ants, is a generalized mutualism with ant species varying in the quality of dispersal services they provide to their plant partners. Variation in ant species identity can directly impact seed dispersal patterns and plant community composition; however, we know less about how interactions among seed-dispersing ant species indirectly influence plant partners. The invasive ant Myrmica rubra, is a high-quality seed-disperser in its native range that interacts with myrmecochores (ant-dispersed plants) and the high-quality seed disperser Aphaenogaster sp. in its invaded range. We use this system to examine how interactions between two functionally similar mutualist ant species influence the recruitment and community compositithe outcome of mutualistic interactions with partner species. Despite the native ant dispersing fewer seeds, its dominance over the subordinate (invasive) ant has the potential to allow for some level of biotic resistance against the effects of M. rubra on plant communities when these species coexist.